Alternative History
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This glossary explains the terms used by most of the Alternate History community.

  • Admins - The members of the TSPTF with the ranks of Curator and Director (Sysop and Bureaucrat). They are the only ones with the power to delete pages and block users.
  • Algo - An algorithm governing something in a map game.
  • Alien Space Bats (ASBs) - When an event or decision happens that is implausible or impossible, we can blame it on the intervention of Alien Space Bats. The term goes back to the earliest days of online alternate history. Many writers use ASBs on purpose to do high-quality work, adding science fiction or fantasy elements or making unrealistic yet fascinating mashups of different eras. On the other hand, AH projects that use Alien Space Bats out of ignorance or lack of research are generally looked down upon.
  • Alternative History - Also known as Alternate History, Althist, or AH, this is speculation on "what might have been," had something in the past happened differently than it did in our history. For a list of Alternative Histories on this wiki, see List of Althists.
  • ATL - Alternate Timeline, events that happened in a different way than in our history. We use this phrase to distinguish our fictional worlds from the real one, or "OTL".
  • AUC - Ab Urbe Condita - Latin for "from the Founding of the City," this counts the years since Rome was founded in 753 BC (which would be 1 AUC). Some timelines use this system for counting dates.
  • Butterfly Effect - a term from Chaos theory. The Butterfly effect means that even smallest changes can have great repercussions, given enough time. Sometimes these far-reaching effects are called "Butterflies". An person, thing, or event that disappears from the timeline due to unforeseen effects may be said to be butterflied away.
  • Chat - the wiki's defunct Live Chat feature, which was much more active before the creation of the Alternate History Wiki Discord server.
  • Community Timeline - A timeline where the entire wiki community is welcome to join and contribute.
  • Conlang or constructed language - a developed fictional language. Conlanging is a community in its own right, but alternate history can incorporate it. AH conlangs typically derive their sounds, grammar, and vocabulary from an ancient source like Latin. Examples on this wiki include Roman, Teedish, and Atlantean.
  • Conworld - Any alternate timeline can be thought of as creating its own constructed world, but the term is especially used for projects where creating the setting gets more emphasis than working out all the historical events. Settings like Vegetarian World can be found on this wiki; there are also separate Conworlds wikis (1, 2), which share many users with this one.
  • Convergent - The opposite of historical divergence; that is, when history changes but things still end up very similar to OTL. Convergent events are often criticized because they may show a lack of knowledge or lack of imagination. For example, it's incredibly common for a timeline to diverge many centuries ago but still have two world wars in the first half of the 20th century, out of an assumption that history is just supposed to happen that way. On the other hand, as with anything else, convergences can also be used in well-informed, nuanced, creative ways.
  • Counterfactuality - An alternate set of circumstances that sets up a timeline, as opposed to an event. Frequently these are ASB; for example, "What if the alchemists were right?"
  • Disambiguation - A wiki page that has no content but links to multiple articles with similar names. On our wiki we have disambiguation pages for people, countries, and events that link to alternate versions across different timelines.
  • Double-Blind "What If...?" (DBWI) - If you pretend you were a native of an ATL who thinks up an ATL relative to his history.
  • Future History or FH - A related genre to alternate history that speculates about events in the future rather than the past. FH is not allowed on this wiki per our conventions.
  • *here* and *there* - another way to distinguish the real world (OTL) from our fictional worlds (ATL or TTL). This terminology, taken from the Ill Bethisad project, was more commonly used in the early days of this wiki.
  • Infobox - Taken from Wikipedia, a template that lists basic information at the start of an article. The Templates page lists several of them, and Category:Templates contains many more.
  • ISOT - Named after the book Island in the Sea Of Time, in these timelines, one or more areas of the world are replaced with areas from different timelines or periods in history. When many places are ISOTted from multiple different timelines, it is sometimes called a Mosaic Earth, after an old project on alternatehistory.com.
  • Map game - a usually competitive, turn-based game in which different people role-play as nations in an althistory setting.
  • Multiverse - (1) The set of multiple possible universes. In AH, it might describe a collection of related timelines, or it could be a science fiction concept used to set up a story. (2) It's also an affectionate nickname for our whole community. (3) For this reason, it has been adopted as the name for our annual Multiverse Awards.
  • OTL - Our Timeline, what has happened in real life. We use this term to distinguish the real world from our fictional worlds, which are called "TTL" or "ATL".
  • Point of Divergence (POD) - The point at which two timelines diverge and the Alternate Timeline begins. "Hard" alternate history most often explores the consequence of a single POD. "Softer" projects may have multiple PODs, or the POD may be only vaguely defined.
  • QSS - From a Latin phrase meaning "What I have written, I have written," this is the name of the policy that says contributors must respect previously-written content in community timelines or timelines that they adopt. The parallel rule QAA has to do with understanding and respecting the assumptions that earlier writers made, as opposed to what they wrote.
  • SOB or Seal on a Bedsheet - derogatory name for a style of flag that puts an elaborate seal on a boring, plain background. This style is especially common for state and local flags in the United States. See Vexillology.
  • Stirlings - Former name of our annual awards.
  • Stub - A term from Wikipedia for a very short wiki page.
  • Talk Page - Each page of this wiki has a corresponding talk page. Links to these pages are in the menu under the edit button. Other places for discussion are our Wiki's Forum and our Discord, both linked from the main page.
  • TTL - This Timeline, A common way to talk about the alternate world we are currently discussing, so it's a synonym for ATL.
  • Template - These are visual boxes made of wiki or HTML code which can contain links, pictures, text, et cetera.
  • Timeline (TL) - A chronological listing of events. It can also be a synonym for an althist setting, project, or universe.
  • TSPTF - The Time Stream Protection Task Force are the management team of the wiki. They are broken up into three ranks - the Directors, Curators, and Archivists - which correspond to bureaucrats, sysops and moderators on most other wikis. (For many years they were Brass, Lieutenants, Constables, and you'll still see those titles on older pages.) You can report problems and ask for help on the TSPTF talk page.
  • Vexillology - The theory and practice of flag design.
  • Wank - Originally from alternatehistory.com, a "wank" is timeline where one nation is made unrealistically powerful. Maybe it wins all its wars, conquers its neighbors, and is somehow still beloved by all. It's similar to the concept of the Mary Sue in fan fiction. The term is meant to be derogatory, but as with Alien Space Bats, some writers have used it intentionally in their timelines.
  • Wikia - The former name for FANDOM before their many rebrandings.
  • Worldbuilding - Developing a fictional world (as opposed to writing an actual narrative). It's the reason most of us are here.

See also[]

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